Activities of Department of English
| Title | Details |
|---|---|
| Title: "Voice of the Voiceless: A Quest for Freedom in Ghosh's The Hungry Tide and The Shadow Lines" | |
| Start Date: 2020-10-30 End Date: 2020-10-30 Duration: 1 days | |
| Nature of the Activity: Research Project | |
| Summary: <div><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Amitav Ghosh holds distinctive place as a novelist in Indian English literature as his </span><span style="background-color: transparent; text-align: center; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">novels depicts human relationship, national boundaries, and structuring his themes around </span><span style="background-color: transparent; text-align: center; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">families and their life - modern life with sub version of historical events. Amitav Ghosh </span><span style="background-color: transparent; text-align: center; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">stresses the importance of freedom of an individual. Amitav Ghosh portrays his women </span><span style="background-color: transparent; text-align: center; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">sensitively and infact, they are the leading spirits in his fiction. They are distinct portrayals of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; text-align: center; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">a cultural construction. “He never presents his women as overt radical feminists nor as the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; text-align: center; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">stereotypical images of Sita and Savithiri”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;">. His women characters are unique as they do not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;">come under the term ‘stereotypes’</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;">. They are the characters of real life and one can easily </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;">relate to them. In his novels he portrays the women characters in a realistic manner. This </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; background-color: transparent; text-align: center;">paper dealt with the identity of a woman – a quest for freedom - in the selected novels of </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; background-color: transparent; text-align: center;">Amitav Ghosh’s “The Shadow Lines” and “The Hungry Tide”.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Through the portrayal of his women characters, he aims to envisage a future where women’s </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; background-color: transparent; text-align: center;">empowerment will lead to emancipator changes in the larger social structures. Ghosh </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; background-color: transparent; text-align: center;">eschews feminist attitudes to bring out the social traumas undergone by the women in his </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; background-color: transparent; text-align: center;">novels. Despite the fact that there are only few women characters in his novels and their role </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; background-color: transparent; text-align: center;">is limited, they are in control of the entire happening in the novels. They act as independent </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; background-color: transparent; text-align: center;">entities, growing and developing according to their own inclinations and finding social </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; background-color: transparent; text-align: center;">acceptance, defining their own space, determining their own lives, fighting their own battles, </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; background-color: transparent; text-align: center;">enjoying the fruits of victory and never fearing to taste the bitterness of defeat. The avoidance </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; background-color: transparent; text-align: center;">of vilification, victimization and degradation of women is commendable, though not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; text-align: center; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">surprising considering the fact that the author hails from the land of Kali</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;">. Ghosh in his </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; background-color: transparent; text-align: center;">novels have always given voice to the voiceless characters. His women characters in the </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; background-color: transparent; text-align: center;">novels “The Shadow Lines” and “The Hungry Tide” gives voice to insecurities, </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; background-color: transparent; text-align: center;">disorientation and fragmentation.</span></div><div><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; background-color: transparent; text-align: center;"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: transparent; text-align: center; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: justify;">The main objectives of the study are:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">i) To understand the women characters of Amitav Ghosh’s selected novels – their <span style="background-color: transparent;">plight, suffering and their pain.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent;"><br></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">ii) To compare and contrast how Ghosh’s women characters are different from the <span style="background-color: transparent;">stereotypical women as portrayed in other novels written by Indian authors.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">iii) To celebrate the characters achievements, growth as a Human and the never dying <span style="background-color: transparent;">will power – be it Tha’mma or Ila (The Shadow Lines) or Piya or Nilima (The</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hungry Tide).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div></span></div> | |